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Religion

For many reasons going to Mass is a production for us (I documented some of our more memorable visits), and so we do not attend as regularly as I would like. The politics of the Vatican in recent years did little to stoke my religious fervor but we do make frequent trips to the empty church to say prayers for those we love, and in particular to remember the young friend my son lost to leukemia last year. The choice of Pope Francis I last week led us to venture to Mass this past Saturday afternoon, in honor of the forgiveness, renewal, and the promise of a fresh start his papacy and this Easter season may hold for all of us. It didn’t hurt that our boy, after a sigh, seemed willing to brave the crowd if it meant a chance to recall his friend. So off we went, arriving early so we could get a seat with a good view of the altar and the Blessed Sacrament.

We usually sit in the front section a few rows back. Hanging from the vaulted ceiling high over and in front of the altar is a massive crucifix with a fairly graphic representation of Christ. It has always been there, in that spot. There we sat, with my boy and his iPod open to a picture of his friend. He had used the paint app to put a yellow halo on his head, and he held it up high so that it faced the Blessed Sacrament. As I reached up to lower his arm gently he looked at me in alarm, pointing to the crucifix as if seeing it for the first time.

“Is THAT Jesus?!” he said in a stage whisper. I nodded, two fingers presses to my lips to remind him to speak quietly and to keep myself from smiling.

“Is THAT the Holy Child?!” Suddenly, the connection between Christmas and Easter began to forge in his mind.

“What HAPPENED?!” I told him we would talk about it later but the questions kept coming.

“Is he dead? Who killed him? See the blood?” He turned the iPod so his angel friend could see, too. That almost did me in.

Finally, in the car I did my best to tell him the full narrative, Christmas to Easter, promising him that we will go back during Holy Week and see the stations of the Cross that tell the entire story of the Crucifixion. He was wary, and raised his hand, palm toward me.

“I’m good.” Then he thought for a minute, playing something in his head. I mentioned that we have a movie at home that tells the story of Jesus.

“Wait! I get it!” And then he did a perfect imitation of the announcer’s voice on the preview from one of his Christmas videos:

“JESUS of NAZARETH!! That’s him!” It only took, like, fifteen years.

When we returned home he bounded up the stairs to say hello to his sister. She came downstairs, laughing.

At that point he didn’t even notice the crucifix.

“What happened? He came up to my room, jumped on my bed and said church was AWESOME. He never does that when he comes home from anything, ever.” I told her everything, and she went up to his room and hugged him. A while later he emerged and called down to me, standing at the railing where I could see him.

“Mom, does Jesus make our hearts happy?”

His smile, his voice, and the way he had his hands clasped over his heart told me it wasn’t really a question.

When our boy was small and we were still trying to figure out what was happening with him, I often said that he was a little closer to heaven and to hell than the rest of us. He was – and is – so much more in touch with his emotions than with the practical world and it magnifies both his joy and his pain in any given situation. As one can imagine, it is a gift and and a curse, but as a parent I place much more value on his gift for presenting vivid, unvarnished snapshots of the most fundamental joys and sorrows in life. This is never clearer than when there has been a death of someone close to him.

He recently lost a classmate to a short, intense battle with leukemia. It all happened while he was at camp, and this turn of events still dominates his re-entry into home and school. He has panic attacks most mornings at school, causing physical and behavioral distress, and we enlisted the help of the school adjustment counselor and the nurse to address his worries.

Earlier this week I met with his teacher and behaviorist who told me that his friend’s parents would be visiting the school to accept a big card that many students from the high school signed honoring their lost classmate. Leading up to this, our boy was writing down his feelings in a letter to his friend JM and they showed it to me – it was phenomenal, full of apologies for being away while he was sick and a long list of people who miss him. He is really working things through with the counselor, which seems to be making a difference, because he appears to be having fewer the panic attacks. They said that he printed out a photo of JM and drew a gravesite on it. Sometimes he puts his hands on the picture and prays to him (which makes the adults in the classroom cry). When he came home from school that afternoon he sat with me and showed me a bracelet JM’s mother gave him with JM’s name and dates on it. He said that it was good to see his parents and to know that JM’s mom misses him too. I asked him if he cried. He said yes.

We went to the dump that same afternoon and on the way back we passed our church (we do not attend often – singing and crowds, you know) and I told him the church was empty and asked if he wanted to say a prayer for JM. He said yes.

We went in, and I reminded him about the presence of the Holy Spirit and about genuflecting and then helped him say a couple of prayers – he kneeled and held his hands in perfect position; so earnest. I asked if he wanted to go or stay and say some of his own prayers. He said stay. He told JM that he was sorry for missing his funeral and that he hopes he is happy in heaven. Then he closed his eyes, bowed his head and put his hand over his heart and said very quietly,

“In peace. In peace. In peace. In peace.”

It was as transcendent as anything I have ever seen in church. He was quiet for awhile and then said he was ready to leave. I asked him he he felt any better. He said yes.

As the Easter Season winds down and we put the harbingers of Resurrection away, I must recognize the egg tradition as it plays out here. This year, our boy chose to dedicate his annual painting of the wooden eggs to his trains and tugs. Borne of my desire to avoid the smell and potential disaster of eggs and vinegar dyes, the wooden eggs painted by all of us over the past dozen years are scattered throughout the house. Each year, it brings the renewal of the spirit home for us.

I went to Mass alone yesterday. I usually have someone with me but I decided to go at the last minute; I needed to sort some things through. It had been the kind of week that gave us a preview of things to come and some reminders of things we hoped were over. At such times I like to go to Mass and check in with my parents in heaven. I am grateful for the link they created in the common experience of going to Mass, back when the Church was a haven and when you felt guilty for not going. Now I feel guilty when I go and when I don’t; betrayal weighs down both sides of the scales. The Golden Rule remains, though, and it is enough to bring me back. I pray – head down eyes closed most of the time – through every Mass and wait for my favorite phrase: “Free us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope…” I hang on those words as I have ever since I can remember and they never fail to comfort. I tell my children this; I do not know if they listen.

And so yesterday I prepared to lay my questions before God and family, knowing that the simple act of unburdening them in this way would bring some measure of peace. Unlike many other Sundays, I was more confused than desperate. In fact, my issues were pretty typical: I wanted to come to terms with what it means for all of my children to grow up – dating, college, driving, cooking, cleaning, banking, living without me. My job is to make them independent and if I succeed they leave me and if I fail they stay and drive me crazy. Lonely versus crazy. This was the problem du jour. I needed a plan.

I listened to the priest make a reference to the movie The Exorcist, which I still have not seen because my mother – on the instructions of the Church – forbade it in 1973. I imagined every kid in that church going home to stream it on Netflix. I wonder if my own kids would be more terrorized by Linda Blair’s spinning head than they were the first time they saw the bleeding crucifix suspended over the altar. It made me smile to think of that as we stood for the Profession of Faith.

I looked across the church and up at the balcony (the building is shaped like a cross with the altar in the middle) I saw a father with three boys and the one next to him was clearly autistic, fluttering his fingers and chattering away (but not audibly to me).

Several times after that I saw the Dad forcefully put this hand over the boys’ mouth and whisper in his ear, sometimes enveloping him in his arms as he spoke to him. They boy did not seem upset or to resist his father’s embrace (the deep pressure probably felt good), but he didn’t appear to comply, either. The other two children looked away. The father was losing his cool, unaware that this was playing out in front of dozens of people, focused only on quieting a child who, compared to the toddlers and babies holding forth, was making very little sound. Feeling both angry and empathetic I wanted to tell him that it isn’t worth it, that if being successful in church requires such physical restraint then maybe he needs to redefine success. I recalled earlier times when my favorite thing about that cross-shaped church is that it has nine exits – nine ways to escape if (when) things go south. Sometimes – rarely – we made it all the way through, but the plan of action was the same for Mass as everywhere else we went: don’t go anywhere that you can’t leave, and be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. Sit near the door.

The last time we went to church as a family was this past Christmas Eve, and for most of the Mass I stood behind my son – who is taller than me – trying to persuade him to keep the Kermit the Frog he had smuggled in his coat from making an appearance. The conversation went something like this:

“Why did you bring Kermit?”

“So he could hear the singing.” He shows me that he is holding Kermit’s hands together as if he is praying. He looks at me and then uses his other hand to clamp Kermit’s mouth closed. With some effort, I give him a stern look.

“He needs to stay in your coat.” His eyes widened.

“Is it because he is naked?”

Tears of mirth and joy welled up in my eyes to know that he enjoyed the singing and that he was trying so earnestly to understand the impropriety of bringing a large stuffed frog to church. I remembered how we tried to get him accustomed to the routine of the Mass, but it was never predictable enough – he was constantly startled by people suddenly bursting into song (and I noticed that not everything is sung at every Mass; it is pretty random as far as I can tell). For him, if it wasn’t a wedding or a funeral, each of which clearly have a purpose, Mass was something to be survived. With the help of many lovely people, we managed to get him through religious education and to make his First Communion but it was clear that the very stress of going was draining the spirituality out of the whole experience for everyone. I prayed that the man in the balcony would learn the same lesson, and soon.

Mass with Kermit means progress, albeit the kind I never expected, and I guess that’s the point. Drawing a map of other people’s lives as a way of defining my own will only take me so far. Sometimes the most you can do is sit near the door.